Author: Thomas Morris

This strange little tale appeared in the London Medical and Surgical Journal in June 1832: A curious case of this description became the subject of investigation at the Bow-street Police Office, a few days ago. Interestingly, this crime was not being investigated by what we would regard as the ‘official’ police. London’s Metropolitan Police had been set … Continue reading Born in a cesspit

In 1873 the Chicago Medical Journal published this article by a Dr Stewart from Muscatine, a small Iowa town on the banks of the Mississippi that would later become famous as the world-leading manufacturer of pearl buttons. The article’s matter-of-fact headline scarcely does justice of the drama to come: Anthony B., a lad aged 17, … Continue reading A harrowing incident

In a week that’s seen snow across much of Britain and record low temperatures in parts of the US, this story from the Annals of Medicine for 1799 seems particularly appropriate: A remarkable and well-authenticated case, of a woman surviving nearly eight days buried in the snow, without food, has occurred this spring, near Impington, in Cambridgeshire. It’s … Continue reading A week entombed in a snowdrift

The Northern Journal of Medicine was a short-lived periodical which appeared for only two years before being acquired by a more successful competitor. But it had some illustrious contributors: published in Edinburgh, it was able to include papers by some of the most eminent medical academics in Europe. The very first edition, which appeared in … Continue reading A dangerous weapon

On the eve of the Battle of Waterloo the Duke of Wellington was making a final inspection of his troops when he spotted one of the medical officers smoking a cigar. The Duke confronted him. “Well! Hennen, is that the fortieth cigar today?” “No, my lord,” replied the surgeon, “it is only the thirty-eighth.” The chain-smoking surgeon was John Hennen, known … Continue reading The bladder shrimp

Today’s story first appeared in the Observationes, a collection of case reports by the German surgeon Wilhelm Fabry (1560-1634). Fabry, also known as Fabricius Hildanus, is sometimes referred to as the ‘father of German surgery’ and was a methodical and scientific operator whose careful descriptions of his work exerted a powerful influence on later generations … Continue reading The eye magnet

In December 1761 a leading French journal, the Journal of Medicine, Surgery and Pharmacy, published a splendid little article by a surgeon from Bordeaux, a Monsieur Renard. The headline describes it as being about ‘a pea that sprouted in the cavities of the nose’: On the 15th of June I was called to see a … Continue reading The pea pod polyp

This short article appeared in a Norfolk local newspaper, the Norwich Gazette, on June 7th 1746: On Sunday last was cut for the stone by Mr. John Harmer, John Howse, gardener, from Porland, aged 49, from whom he extracted a stone of a prodigious magnitude, measuring 12 inches one way and 8 the other, and … Continue reading The foot-long bladder stone

Maximilian Joseph von Chelius was a prominent 19th-century German surgeon who had a significant influence on medics right across Europe. His lectures were frequently quoted in the London and Edinburgh journals, and his textbook Handbuch der Chirurgie, translated into English as A System of Surgery, was widely used. In a chapter devoted to chest injuries, … Continue reading The lucky Prussian

In December 1886 the Cincinnati Enquirer published an exclusive from its New York correspondent. He had uncovered an amazing story at one of the city’s hospitals – the death of its longest-standing patient. She’d been an inmate there for three decades, but that wasn’t even the most interesting part of the tale: When Nellie Steele … Continue reading In hospital for 34 years